


Nothing, But Eclipsed

by stardropdream



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Culture, Alien Mythology/Religion, Alien Rituals, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Memory Loss, Memory Magic, Post-Season/Series 07, Season 8 Doesn't Exist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 10:49:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18364499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: After the Atlas and Voltron land on an alien planet to join in a celebration, Shiro's unwittingly chosen for the sacred ritual of Rah’annurs-- with his memories scattered away from him.As his friends help to collect his memories again, Shiro knows that there'ssomeonehe's supposed to remember and simply doesn't.





	Nothing, But Eclipsed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [songdances](https://archiveofourown.org/users/songdances/gifts).



> Fic request from [Ana](https://twitter.com/shiningwills) who asked for canonverse memory loss where Shiro specifically forgets Keith for magical alien reasons. It was definitely an interesting challenge to write memloss from the memloss character's POV, but hopefully you like the end result, sweetie. ♥ 
> 
> I ended up going a similar route to CLAMP's Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, although there's zero need for background knowledge of that canon in order to understand this fic.
> 
> And a million, trillion thanks to [Juna](https://twitter.com/springofviolets) for reading this over for me and for all your helpful suggestions!
> 
> (Edited December 2019 for typos/grammar.)

_Shiro remembers: there’s a bright flash of light, beaming directly towards— someone._

_Shiro’s moving before he thinks to do it, reaching out and shoving away a slash of darkness in front of him, a spot where a person should have been but isn’t. Just a black hole, an eclipse._

_The light hits Shiro instead._

_When he opens his eyes and looks down, spots of light waterfall out of him. He tries to grab them, tries to keep them inside— they aren’t supposed to leave, they can’t— but each little orb slips through his fingers. He’s empty._

_There’s a shout above him as he collapses to the ground. Something that sounds like his name, spoken by a voice he should recognize but doesn’t. There are hands on him but when Shiro turns his head to look, there’s only an empty space where a person should have been. There’s someone there. Shiro’s memories won’t let him see._

_Shiro tries to hold on. But there’s nothing to hold on to._

 

-

 

Shiro wakes and doesn’t know who he is. 

Pieces of him fall, snap into place, but still too many holes and empty expanses. He wakes up to light falling on him like a shooting star and he also wakes to darkness. 

He thinks he hears his name. He thinks someone touches him. He thinks he wakes enough to speak, but the words are too distant for him to remember. He wakes and he wakes again. 

He wakes and knows he’s Shiro, but little else. 

 

-

 

_“Fix it!” someone shouts, his voice tinged with desperation. Then, quieter, closer to Shiro’s ear, someone whispering to him: “Shiro… Shiro, it’s going to be okay.”_

_Who are you, Shiro wants to ask. His mouth shapes around the language. He breathes. But he can’t manage the words, slipping deeper into unconsciousness. His hand lifts, as if to touch, but finds nothing but air._

 

-

 

Shiro wakes up slowly, in that fuzzy in-between place of consciousness and unconsciousness. It feels as if he’s woken up a thousand times before only to fall back into the dark void of sleep. 

He isn’t sure where he is, exactly, or how long he’s been asleep, but he feels someone holding his hand. It feels familiar and distant at once, the shape of someone’s hand over his, fingers curled. Something protective, intimate, but strange. As soon as Shiro tries to focus on it, it’s too late: when he breathes out and shifts, he feels the person withdraw. 

They move his hand back, placing it down gently at his side. They touch his forehead, as if he is precious, and then withdraw. The touch ghosts away, a shadow and then emptiness. Shiro feels that person shift beside him, rising from the bed and stepping away. 

And when Shiro opens his eyes, he’s alone in his bed. 

It all happens so fast, Shiro isn’t sure if he dreamed the sensation or not. He sits up, slow and with some effort, his body aching that familiar ache of too many hours in bed, exhausted and fatigued. His lower back gives a painful little tweak as he adjusts to sitting upright. 

When he turns his head, there’s a man kneeling in front of a bag, packing up supplies. It takes a moment for Shiro to recognize the Blade of Marmora uniform, although the person within is a mystery. 

“Where am I?” Shiro asks, feeling fuzzed out at the edges. “Who are you?” 

The stranger pauses and looks up at him, mask with its three eyes firmly in place, his shoulders hunched up. It’s impossible to read his expression with the mask on, but he looks tensed, ready to fight or to run away. There’s an impossibly long pause as the Blade looks at Shiro. 

“… I’m no one,” he finally says, voice modulated. 

He stands and slings the bag over his shoulder. He seems to hesitate, hovering there, leaning first forward as it to step to Shiro, and then back, towards the door. 

“Wh—” 

“You should rest,” the Blade interrupts. Even with the voice modulation, he sounds familiar, although Shiro can’t place a time he’d have ever met this person. “I’ll get the Paladins.” 

Then, without another word, the Blade turns and leaves the room. 

Shiro watches him disappear through the door, and watches it swing shut behind him. He’s left alone in the room; blue light filters in through an opened window, an eerie sort of veneer to his vision. 

He’s about to get up and wander around, figure out what’s going on, when a group of people burst into the room. 

“Shiro!” at least three of them cry out, enthusiastically. It takes him a moment, their faces vague and their names even vaguer, floating in his mind, but it’s—

Shiro’s vision swims. “Pidge?” 

Pidge. That’s her name. It’s Pidge who arrives at his bedside first, touching his forearm, her little fingers firm as she grips him. 

Pidge smiles, something sardonic. “Yep. That’s me. You got it this time!” 

Shiro’s eyes flicker over the familiar faces. Pidge, Hunk, Lance, and Allura. There’s an empty space that Shiro can’t place. He stares around the room for a moment, seeking out whatever’s missing. 

“Don’t push yourself,” Allura says, gently. “You’ve been through quite an ordeal.”

“What’s wrong? What’s happened?” Shiro asks, his eyes straying across the room. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, only that something feels lost to him. There’s an echo in his chest, something aching, reaching out for what isn’t there. 

“Let me try explaining it this time,” Lance interrupts as Pidge opens her mouth. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Hunk mutters.

Shiro’s brow furrows. “This time?” 

“This is the fifth time you’ve woken up,” Pidge says, apologetically, and elbows Lance hard in the gut before he can start trying to explain. “Shiro, what’s the last thing you remember?” 

They’re all looking at him expectantly. Shiro frowns, alarm clawing up his throat. 

“The Atlas stabilized orbit around Indyl.” He pauses there, but the others continue to look at him expectantly. He frowns deeper and adds, “We were invited to celebrate their Festival of Vrutill. Ambassador Vesoll was going to meet us once we landed.” 

The others nod but look resigned, the enthusiasm seeping away. Their eyes flicker towards one another, a silent conversation passing between them. 

Shiro’s never liked being the outsider looking in. 

“Okay,” Pidge says, cracking her knuckles. “Basically, all you have to know is that you’re going to be okay and we’re taking care of it.”

Out of anything she could have said, this makes the alarm bells in Shiro’s head start ringing at full volume. It isn’t an answer. Shiro feels itchy all over, tension and anxiety mounting in his gut. He sits up a little straighter, fingers grasping his blanket. He stares at Pidge, trying to orient himself— ready to fight, ready to flee. 

He asks again, more firmly, “What’s going on?” 

The others hesitate and Shiro breathes out slowly through his nose. Once, his question would be answered immediately, when he was the leader of the Paladins, when he—

That’s right. He doesn’t fly Black anymore. He tries to remember who the Black Paladin is, but there’s nothing there for him to hold onto. There’s an empty space, wide and yawning, in his memory. 

Shiro's frown feels like a permanent fixture. “Tell me what’s going on.” 

“It’s difficult to explain everything,” Allura says, sitting down at his bedside. She looks pained in a way that he’s not used to seeing on her face. “We… Shiro, we’ve tried to explain things to you, and it’s made you forget again.”

“What?” 

“Please trust us,” Allura says. “Please trust that we’re not going to let anything happen to you.”

It does very little to reassure him. Shiro feels his shoulders hunch up towards his ears, ready to protest, ready to insist, ready to demand answers—

“Here,” Allura says, kindly, holding up her cupped hands. In her palms, floating, quiet and quicksilver, is a little orb of light. It shivers and orbits around her cupped hands, a cluster of tiny stars inside it, coiling around each other in a tiny galaxy. Shiro looks at it, his mouth opening, a twang of recognition coursing through him, although he’s never seen this thing before.

He’s about to ask what’s going on, _again_ , but the words don’t manifest as Allura holds her hands out and the little orb of light zips straight towards Shiro, hitting him hard in the chest. It’s as if the light punches through him. He gasps. 

He coils into himself and the world goes black.

 

-

 

_“Did you mean it?” Shiro asks the inky darkness sitting beside him. They’re inside the Black Lion, and Shiro feels the tension rise inside the darkness. It curls and coils, like dark spots of ink on a page._

_“I did.” It’s simple, decisive. There’s no hesitation in the voice, even as Shiro knows he’s distressed._

_“Thank you,” Shiro says, truthfully, even as something twists up in his heart. He sounds too formal. He sounds too distant. It isn’t enough. “I can’t begin to thank you for all you’ve done for me.”_

_He says someone’s name, but it sounds too quiet, like being underwater. Shiro can’t hear it. But it’s the name for the man in the darkness, he thinks— and he knows it must be a man, even as he can’t pinpoint the sound of his voice._

_“Don’t,” the voice from the dark says. “You never have to thank me.”_

_It sounds too formal, like the person sitting beside him is already withdrawing, already holding himself back. He knows, deep in his gut, what it would mean if they lost each other, if he lost this person._

_He reaches out, touching a shoulder, although the darkness swallows his hand up in the memory. He can’t see anything._

_“We’ll always be friends,” he murmurs. “No matter what… That won’t change.”_

_The darkness is still for a long beat of silence, shifting against his touch. Shiro feels the pressure of fingers curling around his wrist and squeezing. The voice from the dark is watery, shaky in a quiet way when he says, “Yeah, I know. We’re friends. And I know you don’t feel the same as I do... It’s fine, Shiro. I’ll always be here.”_

_And there’s an ache in Shiro’s chest, something that is right and not right, a knowledge that they will be okay, but something hasn’t been said correctly. Shiro tries to find the words, tries to say it, but the memory spots in places, blooming darkness all around him. It’s fading out like static, like a transmission getting lost because of too much space dust between the two points. Interference._

 

-

 

When Shiro wakes up again, Allura is sitting there at his bedside. She smiles tentatively as their eyes catch and meet, staying like that. He recognizes her. 

“How are you feeling?” she asks. 

Shiro stares at her, trying to place why it feels _off_ that she’s the one here at his bedside. But when he tries to think of who else he might be expecting, no one comes to mind. There’s only an emptiness. 

“Tired,” he confesses. “Okay.” 

“It’s a disorienting thing, I would imagine,” Allura agrees. She smiles, firmer this time. “The others are out finding more of your memories. They should be back soon.”

Shiro’s tries to focus on the others for a moment, fuzzy at the edges. He remembers them, but with difficulty; they were just here, he thinks. They were all here, except for… someone. 

His expression pinches. “Memories?” 

“The orb we returned to you,” Allura explains. “Do you remember?” She waits for Shiro to nod before she explains, “Each one holds a collection of your memories, Shiro.”

“I know who you are, though,” Shiro says. “I don’t have amnesia.” 

From anyone else, Shiro would bristle at the indulging look Allura gives him, finding it condescending. It occurs to him that this might not be the first time she’s had this discussion with him, and guilt twists and swims in his gut. 

“It’s… complicated,” she finally says. “Your memories have been taken from you, but they aren’t irretrievable. We’re taking care of it.”

“Shouldn’t I be doing that?” Shiro asks.

“You’ve been in no condition to move, much less search for something you don’t know you’re missing,” Allura explains. “This is the first time in many days that you’ve been cognizant enough to speak with us. Or to even know who we are.” 

A shiver lances down Shiro’s spine; he has no memory of waking up before today. What he might have said, what he might have done. He can’t envision what his reaction would be, to wake up in a foreign planet with people he doesn’t recognize. The caution in Allura’s eyes speaks volumes. 

“You don’t need to worry,” she tells him. “Let us do this for you.” 

He wants to protest it, to fight against it. He wants to throw the blankets off his body and demand answers. But he feels weak, suddenly, achy and unsettled. It feels too much like being a kid again, his grandmother giving him an indulgent, if heartbreaking, smile. It feels as if he’s run for miles and has no memory of it. He wonders if he felt that before and failed to notice, or if it’s something that’s developed while he slept. 

“Please,” he says. “Tell me what’s going on.”

 _What have I forgotten?_

Allura’s smile turns brittle. “There’s… much I can’t tell you.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Shiro demands. He can’t keep the note of anger from his voice. 

Shiro has memory of debates, he thinks, of arguing with people to get what he wants. He remembers someone— who, who, he can’t remember who— affectionately calling him stubborn. He remembers fighting Adam tooth and nail for stupid, petty things that don’t matter anymore. He remembers Adam and something pangs in his heart. 

He watches Allura struggle to answer his question, and that’s answer enough. Shiro sighs out, trying to rein in his frustration, but something sizzles in his gut, ready to explode. He has nowhere to put his frustration and so he just turns his back to Allura, lying on his side and staring at the wall. 

“You should go check on the others,” he mutters, a dismissal. He remembers saying this, again and again, countless times while stretched out on a hospital bed, his grandparents trying to get him to eat, to rest, to do anything but what he wants to do. 

He isn’t worth any of this trouble. 

“Very well,” Allura murmurs. 

 

-

 

He doesn’t know when Allura stands and leaves him, but when he rolls over, he’s alone in the room. He can appreciate that loneliness only for a breath before the door opens and an Indilli flutters in.

“Captain Shirogane!” Ambassador Vesoll choruses when he sees him awake, his crown of feathers pricked upright in greeting, the Indilli equivalent of a smile. “I’m pleased to see you awake and lucid once more!” 

“Hello, Ambassador,” Shiro says, sitting up.

“Don’t push yourself, don’t push yourself,” the ambassador says, flapping his hands in his direction, a little gust of wind produced by the flurry of feathers. “You’ve been through so much! It’s not every day that a non-Indilli would be Chosen by the Lein’drod.” 

The words mean nothing to Shiro, although he tries not to look completely perplexed as he ignores the ambassador’s words and sits up, pushing his back up against his headboard with a sigh. His body continues to ache, like he’s been running marathons nonstop for days.

“Forgive me, Ambassador,” Shiro says, slowly, “I imagine you must know my… condition right now. Who is the Lein’drod?” 

The ambassador’s eyes widen, and he sits up with a flurry, all his feathers puffing out. “Of course! Oh, you wouldn’t realize at this stage of the ritual!” 

Shiro’s head throbs with a headache and he sighs, pressing the heel of his palm against his temple. He tries not to show his agitation, an inane smile pasted on his face. 

“Come, come,” the ambassador says, “You’ve been cooped up in this room for far too long! I understand your leader’s reluctance to overwhelm you, but this is no way for the Chosen to celebrate the festival.” 

Shiro feels fuzzed out as he gets out of bed, slipping on his boots and following the ambassador. The ambassador speaks in hurried huffs of breath, his beaked mouth clicking excitedly as he recounts the history of the festival to Shiro, as if Shiro could even care in this moment, but he nods politely as he’s led outside.

The day is bright, with blue light radiating from the sun Indyl orbits. With its blue rays, the day looks almost like bright moonlight, and Shiro tries to make sense of a day-night, that strange eclipsed light that pours down over him. Everything around him is washed out and shadows are more muted against the ground. He feels cold and warm at once.

“At this point, you must be well into the stage of the waking,” Ambassador Vesoll says, excitedly. “It’s an exciting stage! Although, I’ve heard that the stage of the calling is far more enlightening! Look, look!” 

He sweeps his hand out again towards the street. The Indilli around them are building decorations for the festival that evening. There are little firepits punctuating the streets, bunting and streamers floating in the breeze. Shiro can recall a moment, on the journey here, when he was excited to participate in an alien festival. 

Now, he just wishes he knew what was going on. 

Indilli flutter all around them, all vibrant colors of feathers. There are some Indilli who glow, almost literally, a warm golden color against the blue light of their world. It’s only a few of them, always close to one another, their own sources of light, glowing brighter as they near each other. It’s almost blinding to look at them. 

“Is it not beautiful, Captain?” Vesoll asks, feathers spread in a wide Indilli-salute. 

“It is,” Shiro agrees, blandly. He watches a couple, both glowing, as they circle one another and drape flags over a banister. Their feathers flutter wide at their crown, the widest Indilli smile that Shiro’s ever seen. Shiro has to look away. 

He thinks of the Paladins, coming to him with his memories cupped in their hands. He feels his jaw clench, his throat tightening up in frustration. 

“Ambassador,” he says. “What did you mean by the Chosen?” 

“The Lein’drod has chosen you, Captain,” Vesoll says, looking out as a few younger Indilli throw seeds along the path for decoration. “It’s an honor to be chosen for the Walk of the Vrutill.” 

Shiro recognizes the word Vrutill only in context— the festival the Paladins were invited to is the Festival of Vrutill, but beyond that, the word means little to Shiro. 

The ambassador watches the street, the many Indilli who flutter by. They pay them little mind, although a few look at Shiro and then duck into themselves, whispering to one another as they pass. 

“I see,” he says, when he absolutely does not see. 

“The Lein’drod has taken the memories of your Rah’annurs,” Vesoll says, studying Shiro carefully. “Once you complete the ritual at Mount Inl, all will be illuminated.” 

These words mean nothing to Shiro, as well. The ambassador’s happiness means even less. Shiro wants to shout in frustration. The urge to yank at his hair, to scrape his fingers into his brain and unearth every lost memory, is so strong that it’s almost suffocating. The world around him is foreign and confusing and overwhelming and he’s _lost_ , flung out to sea with no one who could ever understand him.

The only person who ever knew him is—

He doesn’t remember. Why doesn’t he remember? The world goes static, and all Shiro’s sure of is his hands clenching his head and the ache of his knees hitting the ground hard. 

 

-

 

Shiro dreams. Someone calls to him, again and again. He can’t make out their face, can’t determine their voice. But he knows it.

He wakes up and the sound of his name still rings in his ears. _You can’t do this to me again,_ someone begs. 

His memories are full of slabs of darkness, speaking to him, reaching for him. It’s nothing but dark, a scratch across a page, a torn memory in tatters. 

 

-

 

“What’s a Rah’annurs?” he asks Hunk as soon as he wakes up. 

The terrified look Hunk gives him isn’t an answer, but it’s a curious response. “Shiro,” Hunk cries, “I’m not supposed to talk about this! Please don’t get me in trouble with—” 

He cuts himself off abruptly, looking pale. 

“Who?” Shiro demands.

“I’m not supposed to talk about him,” Hunk moans. “We had a _really_ long discussion about it.” 

Shiro’s frustration builds. It must be obvious, because Hunk looks progressively more nervous and leaves the room quickly to go get Pidge and Allura. 

After a moment, Shiro hears voices outside the door. He’s on his feet instantly, creeping to press his ear up against the wood and listen in, afraid that if they know he’s there, the speaking will stop.

It sounds like Hunk, speaking to someone: “He’s been acting all moody ever since he woke up that… uh, fifth time?” He hears Hunk shifting around, nervous and fidgeting. “I don’t know… Maybe you should talk to him? He’ll listen to you.”

“Not anymore,” a voice Shiro doesn’t recognize says. “There’s nothing I can say.” 

“But—”

“Just leave it, Hunk.” He hears a sigh. “Just— there can’t be too many more of his memories to get, right?” 

There’s a long pause and then Hunk says, with deep sympathy, “We’ll help him, you know? It’s going to be okay.”

“I know. I’ll make sure of it.”

Shiro feels guilty for being so frustrated with his friends. He knows they’re trying to help him, knows that whatever they’re keeping from him, it’s for a good reason. They mean well, but Shiro’s about to start throwing things to alleviate his own frustration. Never at his friends, but he can’t speak for the walls getting out of this undented. It itches under his skin, that need to know what’s going on, that hatred of being left in the dark. He spent too much of his life being protected from the bad things. 

Shiro finds himself touching the door handle, about to exit, to assure Hunk he isn’t angry with him. He’s right. He’s going to be okay. 

He wants to know who Hunk’s speaking to. He hears footsteps instead, voices drifting away. 

Shiro keeps his ear pressed to the door even as the voices fade, even as there’s nobody left out there to speak. 

Shiro sways on his feet. He reaches out, tries to grasp the door handle, shaped like a five-pointed star to help the Indilli open doors with their feathered fingers— and why should he remember something like that and not the voice beyond the door, a voice he should recognize, he knows, but doesn’t? 

The ambassador mentioned a mountain. A ritual. A stage of calling. 

Shiro leans against the door and makes his decision. 

 

-

 

_Someone touches his cheek, hand shaking. He whispers, heartbroken and quiet, “I just want you to remember me.”_

_Shiro closes his eyes._

_“Shiro. Please.”_

 

-

 

_Shiro wakes up. There’s a dark space of nothing above him, a slash of midnight in an otherwise clear memory. There should be someone there, but there’s only an empty space._

_“Who are you?” he asks, because he doesn’t recognize the person who should be there._

_The darkness shifts back away from him with a gasp, the voice gravelly when it begs, “Don’t you know me?”_

_Shiro watches the memory unfold and tries to swim after it. He reaches out his hand, tries to grasp at the stray ends of it, but it frays apart, splinters into nothing like a piece of rotten wood._

_Shiro wakes up._

 

-

 

Shiro wakes up and stares out the window at the sky full of clouds and sun. The light is blue in this world— he remembers that first before he remembers his own name. 

There’s a set of clothes laid out on a chair beside his bed. As Shiro pulls himself from bed, he recognizes the traditional garb he’d read about on the flight to Indyl, on a datapad full of Indilli culture for the Paladins to study. 

It’s the traditional outfit for the festival. Wordlessly, Shiro pulls the clothes on, a pair of voluminous pants and a tight shirt that feels restrictive around his shoulders. Someone took the time to cut off the sleeve of the right arm. The fabric pulls taut over his chest. 

He hears cheering and chorusing outside, people already getting into the spirit of the festival. Shiro smiles to himself, but it’s vacant, disappointed that he can’t feel any real cheer himself. He can remember being excited. 

It feels distant, a memory of charting the course towards Indyl, asking— someone for advice on the most efficient way to move forward. Someone laughing in his ear over him being stubborn. He remembers thinking to himself that he should ask this person to go to the festival with him. The datapad outlined that it was a festival for lovers, it seemed like the right time to address a long-unfinished conversation. 

Shiro’s brow furrows, trying to lock in on that memory. A festival for lovers. That’s right. A festival to celebrate that test of love, that moment when care becomes—

Shiro tries to grasp onto the memory, but it floats away, distant and ephemeral. 

As he exits into the main room, the Paladins all look up. They’re wearing the traditional outfits, too, and Allura beams, clapping her hands. 

“Oh, Shiro. I’m so happy to see you awake. We were just about to check on you,” she says, and he knows she means well, but Shiro nearly flushes with embarrassment over being coddled. “Are you ready to attend the festival?”

Shiro considers striking out onto the streets with the Paladins, all of them hovering and worrying over him, checking him over for any signs of falling over and unconsciousness. 

He says, “You all go ahead. I think I need a few more minutes awake before I’m ready to party.” 

“Are you sure? We don’t want to leave you alone,” Hunk says.

“He won’t be, I mean, Kei—” Lance begins, before Pidge gives a solid elbow straight to his gut. “Ow!” 

“We can’t talk about him, remember?” Pidge hisses, quiet enough that Shiro nearly misses it. He hears it, though, and the two of them aren’t particularly subtle.

Lance pouts and rubs his stomach. When he speaks again, his voice sound wheezy, “I was just saying that, uhhhh, we don’t need keys! Yeah. No keys here!” 

If Shiro didn’t want them to leave him be, he’d be insulted by how obvious the lie is. Instead, he just laughs and agrees, “Yeah, no keys.” 

Shiro and the Paladins walk out the door and into the street, alive with the festival now despite the sunset. Shiro blinks a little at the bustle of lights. All around him, lights hang from strings and in lanterns, not dissimilar to his own memories the Paladins have brought him. There’re cheers in the distance, and children running around in traditional garb, holding little sparklers. 

It is, for all Shiro can tell, a celebration. The festival they were meant to attend in the first place, as Paladins of Voltron and the Captain of the Atlas. 

Shiro gives the others a bland smile and makes a show of sitting down on the bench outside the Paladins’ cottage and saying, “You have fun. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“We have our communicators,” Hunk says. “Let us know when you’re ready to join us and we’ll be right over!” 

“Of course,” Shiro says with that same weak smile, and keeps smiling until they’re around the corner. He lets it drop immediately after that, staring down at his feet with a sigh. 

There are decorations all over, large flags and bunting lining the streets, children yelling and chasing each other with sparklers. It feels too familiar, being out in the open like this— like festivals his grandfather used to take him when he was a kid. The air here is crisp, smelling of Indilli popped corn and sky water. 

Part of him wants to run off into the darkness and stay there before the Paladins can find him and force him back to his room. He knows they mean well. He knows they’re worrying about him. He shouldn’t be the one to burden them. But he should be the one getting his own memories, he thinks.

The ambassador mentioned the mountain. He looks out past the swollen lights of the village, towards the horizon. There’s only one mountain that he can see, looming and glowing with the last dredges of sunlight, the blue sun of the Indilli’s system sunk beyond it. 

Shiro feels like he’s drowning. He keeps trying to grasp at memories in his mind, but nothing comes to him. When he follows the strings, his head starts to ache. 

He can’t remember what he’s forgotten. It nags at the back of his mind. 

He’s so busy trying to focus that he nearly misses the way the air shifts around him. When he glances to his side, there’s a Blade of Marmora there, lingering just on the edge of the light spilling from the cottage’s doorway. 

There are a few milling around the festival, having accompanied the Atlas to greet the planet into the Coalition. Most of the Blades, he’s noticed, wear their suits still, but not their masks. This one has his mask on and he’s significantly shorter than the other Blades Shiro’s seen this evening. He recognizes him as the one in his room that first morning (fifth morning? Shiro can’t remember) he woke up. 

Shiro tilts his head, studying him. “Good evening.” 

The Blade startles and nearly backs again into the shadows. Then, he seems to think better of it and approaches the bench slowly. Shiro watches this all, unsure what to make of his hesitancy. 

“Did they put you on duty tonight?” Shiro asks. “I can’t imagine the Indilli feel they need security, or that the Blades would find much to investigate.” 

The Blade stares at him. Or, at least, Shiro figures that’s what he’s doing. 

Shiro shrugs. “The mask. Your friends haven’t been wearing theirs tonight. Are you on duty?” 

The Blade looks away. He speaks, after a moment, and the modulated voice comes through muffled and distant. “I’m just looking for a friend.” 

“Is he going to be able to find you with your mask on?” Shiro asks with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, his mind focusing on the sound of the Blade’s voice. Even modulated, it sounds thick and deep and known.

The Blade is silent. Then he asks abruptly, “Why are you out here by yourself?” 

Shiro gives him a bemused look and shrugs his shoulder again. “I needed some air. Some time alone. They’ve been hovering.” 

He doesn’t mean to sound bitter, but it seeps into his voice anyway. He tries not to let his annoyance show on his face. He has no idea what the Blade sees, if anything. But then again, the Blade of Marmora members have always been exceptionally observant. He should know, since—

“So, what’s your name?” Shiro asks.

“I’m nobody,” the Blade answers. 

Shiro laughs, and then realizes it’s not a joke when the Blade doesn’t move, doesn’t offer anything else. Message received. 

“Alright,” Shiro allows. “Sorry. I won’t bother you.” 

Shiro turns his face away, watching the Indilli frolic down the streets. It seems that news has spread of Shiro being Chosen this year, and the few Indilli that recognize the human on the bench outside the Paladins’ cottage titter to themselves, whispering and looking thrilled as they ogle him blatantly. He waves at the younger Indilli and they scatter with squeaking giggles.

Shiro has no idea what it means to be chosen. He has no idea what the Lein’drod is. 

All he knows is the ambassador mentioned the mountain. 

“Do you think—” Shiro begins, turning to address the Blade, stopping mid-sentence when he realizes the Blade has disappeared into the night. 

Shiro smiles at the empty space and turns his head, staring out at the horizon in the distance, where the sacred mountain looms, piercing the night sky. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs, “I’m not much company tonight, anyway.” 

He stares off into the darkness, towards the looming figure of the mountain. 

He’s already decided and now is the time to go. The others are out— Lance playing shooting games to win Allura prizes, maybe, or Hunk trying all the foods, Pidge trying to figure out how the lanterns float through the air like little birds. 

Shiro stands and darts inside. He knows he must move quickly, seizing a bag off a hook by the door and shoving as much food into it as he can manage. He hurries upstairs, grabbing a shawl and a blanket, stuffing it inside. 

He doesn’t stop to think, doesn’t stop to consider. He slings the bag over his shoulder and disappears into the night. 

Seeds crackle beneath his heels as he runs down the street. He doesn’t stop. The mountain looms in the distance, and it calls out to him to run towards it. 

He answers that call. 

 

-

 

Shiro doesn’t know how long he runs. For a time, all he can hear is the rattling of his own breath in his ears, the pounding of his feet on the ground, the sound of the wind and the arc of the sky above him. 

He keeps waiting for his communicator to chirp, for the Paladins to wonder where he is. He wishes he had a ship, a hoverbike, something to race. All he has now is the hammer of his heart, the gasp of his lungs as he gulps down air, running and running and running—

It’s impossible to remember the last time he felt this frenzied, so desperate and focused. 

His mind unfolds around him: _“Shiro, please— you’re my brother. I love you—”_

He doesn’t know who it is, but the words startle him as they pierce through his mind. 

A moment later, he’s tripping, hurtling forward and only just managing to catch himself. His wrist gives a pathetic tweak as it twists under him and he goes rolling across the ground, the grass purple and rising to meet him. He tumbles and stills on his back, panting. 

He stares up at the unfamiliar sky above him, gulping down air. 

Shiro feels like an empty lantern, surrounded by endless night, waiting for the light to return.

Slowly, as if in a dream, he watches an orb of his memories float down towards him, like a wisp of a dandelion. Shiro watches it thoughtfully, inviting it, doesn’t fight back against its snowfall to his chest. It hits him and he absorbs it, closing his eyes. 

 

-

 

_“I’m okay,” the darkness tells him, and Shiro can hear the smile in his voice. He’s in a hospital bed and he’s always hated hospitals, but it’s made worse seeing him in the bed instead of Shiro._

_The darkness shifts and makes room on the bed. A tendril of dark uncurls and pats the spot beside him._

_“Come here,” the darkness invites and Shiro crawls to him, curls around him, clings to him._

_“I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you,” he tells the darkness, and he hears the darkness hum and hold him close, tight, mouth pressing to his ear._

_“You’ll never be without me.”_

 

-

 

_“You have to stop talking about me,” someone says outside the door._

_“But if he’s forgotten you, shouldn’t we make him remember—?” he hears Lance ask._

_“We can’t. It keeps triggering him. It keeps_ hurting _him.” There’s silence for a moment, and then when the first voice speaks, his words crack, pained. “I can’t keep hurting him.”_

_“It isn’t your fault,” Hunk says quickly._

_“It doesn’t matter if I mean to or not. You’ve heard the way he shouts when his mind gets wiped. We—_ I _can’t keep doing that to him.”_

_Now that Shiro thinks of it, he does feel achy. Maybe he’s dying. He knows what it feels like to die, a slow death and a quick death both. It’s odd that he should have such experiences._

_He has experiences coming back, too. Someone— a streak of darkness where a man should be— reaching out to him in the expanse of the astral plane, fingers curling tight. Never letting him go. Always finding him._

__You found me, _his memory echoes._

 _The darkness says,_ It’s good to have you back. _Shiro believes the darkness, the space that curls and coils like an inkspot. Someone should be there. Shiro doesn’t know who._

_He hears the first voice say, “Whatever’s going on with this fucking Lein’drod, it’s clear that I’m… something he’s not meant to remember.”_

_“But if you and Shiro are Rah’annurs—”_

_“We’re not,” the voice says, sharply. “It’s a mistake. That isn’t the way he feels.”_

_He hears Hunk say someone’s name, although it fuzzes out before it reaches Shiro’s ear. He can’t hear it. He feels lightheaded._

_“There’s no point in making him remember me now,” someone says, and Shiro thinks that he must be the only one who realizes how badly that person wants to cry._

 

-

 

Shiro stirs to the sensation of someone’s fingers in his hair, touching his face. He thinks he hears someone whisper his name. 

When he opens his eyes, it’s to complete darkness, the sky soaked with stars. 

With a groan, Shiro sits up, rubbing his shoulder absently. _I will never give up on,_ his mind supplies, although there’s nothing to tether the words to. 

Shiro picks up his bag and staggers to his feet, taking a moment to orient himself towards the mountain and then resuming his walk. His mind is fuzzy with memories and non-memories alike. He can’t tell what’s a dream, what’s reality, what he’s experienced in the last vargas, the last days. Everything mushes together, a memory and not-memory. 

He wonders if maybe he’s just going insane. 

_I love you,_ someone once told him, and Shiro’s heart aches with each step he takes. Whoever he’s forgotten, it yawns in his chest— widening, exhaustive. Something is missing, plunging him into an endless, unspeakable darkness. 

Shiro starts walking. He keeps walking.

He doesn’t know how long he travels, but the movement of the stars suggests some vargas. He startles when he sees his shadow stretch in front of his feet, the sun rising up behind him. Daytime on Indyl is not unlike night, the light from the sun muting everything. 

Shiro looks up towards Mount Inl and keeps walking. He’s surprised that the Paladins haven’t contacted him, haven’t wondered where he is. He wonders that he doesn’t see one of the Lions swooping down from the sky, reproaching him. 

He sighs and lets the sun warm his back. 

 

-

 

Halfway into the morning, Shiro’s aching with exhaustion. He hasn’t slept and the mountain doesn’t seem any closer. 

On the path in front of him, though, a little orb of his memories floats along the ground, hovering there like a dust bunny, swept up in the breeze. 

Shiro looks at the little light, floating there on the path before him. He takes a step forward, kneeling just a little and reaching for it. 

And just as quickly, Shiro feels himself getting shoved back, as if repelled. It takes a moment for Shiro’s mind to focus on the streak of a person before him, hands pressing to his chest. It’s the Blade from the night before, from Shiro’s first morning, pushing him away from the memory. 

“ _Don’t,_ ” he hisses to Shiro, his voice frantic. “You’ll pass out. You want to just be lying out in the open with a head injury? It’s dangerous on the path.” 

Shiro blinks in surprise at the Blade, how the touch of his hands to his chest feels almost familiar, like something he should invite, like something he shouldn’t fear. His heart kicks up in his chest. 

“I need them,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. 

Still, he lets the Blade push him back. 

Shiro studies him. “… Did you ever find your friend last night?” 

He has no way of telling if the Blade startles at the question or not, what sort of expression he’s wearing when he looks up at Shiro. He does have the distinct impression that he’s being studied, though; assessed and judged, perhaps. 

“No,” the Blade says, finally. Something like heartbreak colors the modulation. 

“What are you doing out here?” Shiro asks. 

The Blade looks over his shoulder at Shiro’s memory and then turns back to look at him. “Making sure you don’t hurt yourself.” 

Shiro frowns thoughtfully. “Well. As long as the others didn’t send you to bring me back.”

“They didn’t.” 

Shiro nods, accepting this. He has no reason to take the Blade at his word, and yet he doesn’t question it. Somehow, it feels expected. 

“You’ve been traveling all night,” the Blade says. “You should rest.”

“I did,” Shiro says, not elaborating on letting the memory from before hit him, sprawled out on the ground. Maybe the Blade already knows about it. They are known for their stealth, after all; perhaps the Blade’s been following him since the moment he left the cottage in a frenzy. 

The Blade touches his shoulder, and something sparks in Shiro’s gut. Shiro doesn’t realize he’s gasping until the Blade yanks his hand back. 

“Did I hurt you?” he asks and sounds frantic again.

Shiro shakes his head, clenching his eyes shut against the flood of embarrassment. “No. I just… No.”

He doesn’t know how to put it to words, that aching, hollow echo. Whatever it is, he wants the Blade to touch him again. 

But instead, the Blade steps away from Shiro, rigid and withdrawn. 

“Please,” the Blade says, and it sound strange to hear a Blade of Marmora, a Galra, saying such a word. “Please, rest. Shiro.” 

There’s something about the way the Blade says his name. Something that was tensed inside Shiro’s heart eases, and he nods without thinking. His heart gallops when he sees the Blade’s shoulders slacken in relief. 

Shiro watches as the Blade collects firewood, kneeling off the trail to build up a fire. It’s quick work and he uses the Luxite dagger strapped to the small of his back to cut off twigs and branches. The fire burns smoky because of the freshly cut wood, but it’s better than nothing. Shiro sits down near the fire and lets it warm him. 

“You should rest, too,” Shiro says before the Blade can disappear into the trees. He looks like if Shiro were to blink, he’d be gone. He watches the Blade hesitate and adds, “I don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to be alone.”

He doesn’t know what prompts him to be openly vulnerable, to admit to a weakness, even in passing, but it seems to work on the Blade. He shuffles forward and sits, cross-legged, on the other side of the fire. 

“Why were you following me?” Shiro asks. 

The Blade doesn’t answer at first. He pokes a stick into the fire and watches it smolder at the tip. He fiddles with it, and the ember looks eerie in the light, a fire hinting blue. 

Shiro sighs. “Will you at least tell me your name?”

“I’m nobody,” the Blade says once more. 

Shiro snaps a stick in half and throws one half into the fire, his knuckles white where he grips the other half. His jaw tenses and he says nothing. 

The Blade watches him. He can feel his eyes on him. 

After a moment, the Blade sighs. “My name is Keith.” 

He seems to hold his breath. He waits. Shiro doesn’t know what he’s waiting for. 

Shiro smiles, hesitantly. “It’s nice to meet you.” 

He watches Keith’s shoulders slump, the way his head tips forward. He appears, for a moment, unspeakably sad. Lost in a way Shiro can’t describe. 

“Are you going to be insulted if I say your name’s not really Galra-y?” Shiro asks, instead of following that train of thought. 

The Blade— Keith— snorts, and it’s a soft sound. Cute is the first word that pops into Shiro’s mind. He shoves it back down again. 

“You’re right,” Keith agrees. He pauses, clearly hesitating. 

Then, a moment later, the mask dissolves from the Blade’s face. Shiro can’t help but stare at the young man in front of him. He looks shockingly familiar but Shiro can’t place him. His hair is dark and frames his face, his eyes wide and staring straight at Shiro. If the mask felt intense in its steadiness, Keith’s face is all the more so as he gazes at him, studying Shiro’s face. His eyes are fathomless. 

“You’re human!” Shiro says and hates how stupid he sounds.

Keith smiles, something hesitant and quiet. “Half, at least.” 

His voice is different without the modulation— melodic, sweet in a quiet way. 

He’s handsome. 

“I didn’t realize that the Blade of Marmora had anyone from Earth in their ranks,” Shiro says, surprised. The Galra invasion of Earth only happened so recently, and while the Coalition is growing every day, Shiro hadn’t realized that humans could have gone out so far. And here he thought the Paladins and the Holts were the first humans to contact alien life. 

Keith shrugs, eyes lowering as he picks up another stick to poke into the fire. His eyelashes fan across his cheeks, dark like soot. 

“Do you know much of the Blade?” Keith asks, not unkindly. Without the mask, Shiro finds it easier to read him, at least, even if his face is that of a stranger. 

Shiro shakes his head. “I saw one of the Trials. It—” 

He stops, abruptly, as the memory escapes him. He remembers Kolivan standing beside him, face masked, and telling him, _And right now, your friend desperately wants to see you._

He remembers someone shouting his name, calling out to him, reaching out to him, as a holographic version of Shiro walked away. He can’t place the face, the source of that desperation, what was being given up. Shiro can remember his anger, though, his fear and concern. 

Something looks brittle in Keith’s eyes. 

“So how did you end up joining?” Shiro asks. The fire pops between them, sending a shower of little sparks into the air. They arc and fall against the purple grass, but don’t ignite. 

“Why do you want to know?” Keith asks.

“I’m curious.” 

“I wanted answers,” Keith hedges. 

“Knowledge or death,” Shiro echoes, recalling the memory. He tilts his head, smiling across the fire at Keith. “Did you get your answers?” 

“I did. But sometimes I worry about the cost,” Keith says. 

“What do you mean?”

Keith is silent for a moment and then looks up at Shiro, his eyes fierce. “Stop asking me things.” 

Shiro blinks in surprise. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.” 

“There’s nothing to know about me.” Keith snaps a few larger branches with aggressive force. If it were any other circumstance, Shiro would be impressed by the casual way he snapped such thick branches without any strain in his arms from what he can tell. 

Shiro wants to protest, but he’s already overstepped his bounds. 

He looks down at the fire. “We should rest.” 

Keith watches him, his face steady and impassive now— aside from his eyes. They burn, a supernova contained in the deep, strange purple of his eyes. 

“Here,” Keith whispers, his hand cupped around one of Shiro’s memories. The little light pulses like a quasar, flipping and spinning against Keith’s palm. “I’ll watch over you while you sleep. You can trust me, Shiro.”

“I know,” Shiro answers and it’s the truth. He doesn’t know why, but he does. 

He breathes out when Keith touches his chest, pressing the orb of light against his heart. It flashes and then disappears into the shell of Shiro’s body. He closes his eyes. He falls.

He knows that Keith catches him. 

 

-

 

_“Sometimes,” a voice whispers. “I wonder what would have happened if I’d stayed with Voltron. Maybe I’d have known something was wrong sooner—”_

 

-

 

_“You won’t remember this,” the darkness tells him. It smears his vision, like an ink blot hitting water, spreading and coiling. There’s a thin tendril of darkness touching his thigh, the steady presence of a hand Shiro can’t recognize, “but I promise that I’ll fix this. I won’t let anything happen to you.”_

_“I don’t know who you are.”_

_“That’s okay. I know who_ you _are,” the voice from the dark answers. It sounds soft, graveled and deep, “and I’ll protect you. No matter what it takes.”_

_Shiro feels the urge to cry. He tries to drag his fingers down deep into this memory, to hold onto it and pry it open._

_But it, too, disappears, shattering like glass right before his eyes._

 

-

 

When Shiro comes to again, it’s with Keith hovering over him, studying his face. Keith blinks, as if in surprise, when Shiro opens his eyes. Then he backs away, unblocking Shiro’s view of the sky and retreating to his place by the fire. 

Keith picks up a stick and fiddles with it, poking into the fire, as if it might give the illusion that he wasn’t just staring at Shiro as he slept.

Shiro isn’t sure what to say to him. He sits up, rubbing a hand at his back, easing out the sores. 

“I’m surprised the Paladins didn’t show up while I slept,” Shiro admits. 

Keith shrugs. Shiro wonders if he contacted them somehow. Shiro fishes around in his bag until he finds a few snacks, something like a granola bar made of bird seeds. He breaks off half and offers it to Keith while chewing on the other half. Keith eats silently. 

“So,” Shiro says, after the silence stretches so long that it feels fathomless. “I appreciate your help. I don’t want to keep you, though. I should be fine on my own.”

“And what of the rest of your memories?” Keith asks, voice sharp. There’s a small seed stuck in his front teeth, Shiro thinks, watching Keith lick his bottom lip and frown. “You can’t just wander around.” 

“I need to get to the mountain,” Shiro says. He frowns, thinking. “I’m— in the stage of the calling, I guess. I need to complete the ritual of Rah’annurs.” 

Keith frowns, his eyes sad. “Do you even know what the ritual asks for?” 

“I’ll figure it out.” Shiro shrugs.

Keith makes a sound of frustration. “I’m going with you.” 

“Why do you care so much about what happens to me?” Shiro asks, honestly curious. 

He isn’t sure if it’s the wrong thing to ask, but he watches Keith hunch into himself, his shoulders rigid and his face going carefully blank. 

“You can’t stop me, Shiro,” he says.

“I wasn’t trying to,” Shiro answers. “But nobody’s going to stop me, either.” 

Keith looks miserable when he whispers, “I know.” 

 

-

 

They spend the afternoon and early evening walking in silence. Shiro still feels tired from barely any sleep and walking all night, but Keith is silent. He follows Shiro like a shadow, hanging back every time Shiro pauses and glances over his shoulder to see if Keith is still there. 

They travel without words. All Shiro can focus on is how heavy his feet fall and how silent Keith is behind him. There are no birds in the traditional sense on Indyl, aside from the Indilli people themselves, and so the valley around them is silent as they approach the looming mountain. It always seems too far away. 

“So,” Shiro begins, after about a solid varga without speaking, “Do _you_ know what I’ll need to do to get all my memories back?” 

Keith crosses his arms, but stops obediently when Shiro stops walking, turning to face Keith instead.

“I’ll get you to the mountain,” Keith says. “And once there, you’ll need to drink the water.”

“That’s it?” Shiro asks in surprise. 

“You’ll need to submerge yourself,” Keith says, slowly, as if uncertain. “And you’ll be tested by the Lein’drod.” He sighs out. “It’s hard to explain it in a way that won’t just… make you forget, you know?” 

“Sorry,” Shiro says. Keith shakes his head.

“It’s the ritual of the Rah’annurs. It’ll test if it’s true.” Keith’s hand falls to his hip, close to his blade, and he frowns. “But I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

It’s familiar. Shiro’s chest aches. 

“You’re going through a lot of trouble for me,” Shiro says, a memory coming to him unbidden. Adam and some of his last words to Shiro: _Don’t expect me to be here when you get back._ Not worth the trouble. One last push until everything shatters. 

But then, at the launch for Kerberos, there’s a blank space through his memory (like a rip in a page, where something once was but is no longer), telling him, _I’ll be here when you get back._

His friends have done too much for him already— it isn’t anger he feels that they wouldn’t tell him what was happening. It was a fear, maybe. A fear, perhaps, an unsettling fear that, eventually, everyone will realize he’s not worth all the trouble. 

That the empty spot in his memories is someone who’s already long gone. 

Keith studies his face for a long, flinching moment. Shiro thinks, perhaps, Keith is going to say something, admit to something, confess something that will be ripped away from Shiro’s mind before it can properly settle.

Instead, though, Keith looks down. “It was meant for me.” 

“Huh?” 

“The light from the Lein’drod. It was going to hit me. But you got in the way instead.” For a moment, Shiro isn’t sure if Keith sounds disappointed or heartbroken, but he watches the distress splinter over his face and, with a shock, Shiro realizes he looks _guilty._ “I wasn’t paying attention and you got hurt because of me.” 

“Well,” Shiro says, quietly. “I’d do it again.”

Keith looks up at him sharply. 

Shiro smiles, brittle. “I wouldn’t necessarily wish this on anybody. It’s… I don’t like not remembering.” 

“Fuck all these birds,” Keith says with such ferocity, so suddenly, that Shiro barks out a surprised laugh. Keith looks equally as surprised by Shiro’s reaction, blinking at him. His cheeks almost turn pink, Shiro thinks. 

“Sorry,” Shiro says when Keith continues to give him an incredulous look. “It’s not the Indilli’s fault.” 

“They could have warned us this might happen,” Keith mutters. 

Shiro shrugs. “Ambassador Vesoll seemed surprised that a non-Indilli was Chosen. Who knows what makes me so special?”

Keith gives him a sharp look. It nearly steals Shiro’s breath away, especially when he steps up to him, his hand lifting to touch his shoulder. “Shiro,” he says, eyes burning and so, so serious, “I’ll protect you. You know that, right?”

Somehow, when Keith says it, it doesn’t annoy Shiro as it did when the Paladins insisted on taking care of him. From Keith, it doesn’t feel like condescension. He doesn’t know why that should be.

“I know,” he whispers. He jumped in front of the light from the Lein’drod for Keith. That—

“Nothing is going to happen to you,” Keith says, fierce, and achingly familiar— Shiro thinks he’s heard this before, he must have heard this before. Keith’s eyes are so bright. “Shiro…”

The sound of his name on Keith’s lips sounds like a prayer. Keith is a burning fire, Shiro thinks. The idea that they’re _strangers_ seems near impossible for Shiro to comprehend.

“Are…” Shiro begins and licks his lips, watches the way Keith studies his mouth and then looks up into his eyes again. “Do we know each other?” 

Keith steps back abruptly, his hand falling from his shoulder. Shiro sways, almost as if he might collapse, the force of the question pressing down on him like a solid, lead weight. 

“We should keep moving,” Keith says, and rushes past Shiro, leading the way down the path towards the mountain.

“Wait—” 

“ _Don’t_ ,” Keith orders. “Don’t talk to me. Don’t ask anything. Just walk.”

Shiro gapes at Keith’s back, even as he stumbles to follow him. His entire body screams something at him, but it’s almost as if it were in another language entirely, something he can’t begin to comprehend. 

He follows Keith. 

 

-

 

Twilight falls quicker on this planet, its full rotation quicker than an Earth day. That, and the path they walk falls under the shadow of the mountain, ever closer to them. 

Keith sets up camp and makes a fire, catching some small rabbit creature to skin and cook for Shiro. Shiro watches him do all this silently, studying the practiced ease of his movements, the confidence with which he moves. 

He doesn’t meet Shiro’s eyes. 

“You don’t need to come with me to the mountain,” Shiro tells him.

“I’m going,” Keith answers.

Somehow, Shiro isn’t surprised by the response. He eats his rabbit. It’s dry, tasting more like fish than rabbit, somehow. He watches Keith pick at the flakey meat of its leg, barely eating. 

The fire licks up into the air, illuminating Keith’s face. He looks handsome, sitting across the fire from Shiro. 

Longing blooms inside him, a quiet grief he can’t place. There’s someone he should be thinking of, someone he’s missing. He can’t place their face, the sound of their voice. There’s nothing there, just streaks of darkness in his memory. 

He thinks that, whoever it is he’s forgotten, he’s in love with them. He doesn’t voice it aloud. He doesn’t want to put voice to a reality that stares him down— that he could be in love and have forgotten it. That he was in love and rejected that person anyway. 

“We’ll reach the mountain by tomorrow afternoon,” Keith says, interrupting Shiro’s thoughts.

Shiro hums and says, “Okay.”

Keith studies his face, though, and doesn’t flinch away. After a moment, he asks, “Are you okay?”

Shiro feels that note of surprise in his expression as he looks up at Keith. Leave it to a Blade of Marmora, he thinks, to be able to read his expressions where the Paladins failed to notice. 

“I’m okay,” Shiro says, slowly, uncertain how much he should admit to. His instincts tell him to lay everything out, to expose his heart. His logical side advises against it; Keith is a stranger. An ally, certainly, but undeserving of Shiro’s dirty laundry and depressing thoughts. 

_Shiro,_ someone calls to him, deep in his memories. The sound of his name on that person’s tongue, all Shiro’s ever wanted to hear—

Keith frowns at him. 

“Shiro,” Keith says now, gentler, kinder. “You can tell me. If you want.” 

Looking down at his rabbit, Shiro’s unsure how to answer. When he looks up at Keith, he’s still watching him, the frown eased at his mouth, something glowing in his eyes. 

Again, so achingly familiar. 

“I feel useless,” Shiro admits, which is as close to the truth as he can manage. He twirls the stick of rabbit meat between his fingers, staring into the fire now, his cheeks burning red. “So many people are going through so much trouble for me.” 

“None of this is your fault,” Keith answers, gently. He doesn’t sound dismissive, at least; he doesn’t try to tell Shiro he shouldn’t feel this way. Instead, his words are quiet, offered sincerely. 

Shiro can’t help but wonder if he deserves that kindness.

He shakes his head, shrugging. “A lot of people have made a lot of sacrifices for me. Ever since I was a kid. Even out here in space. It’s how I learned about the Blades in the first place… someone helped me. And he died because of it. Because of me.” 

He flexes and unflexes his hands, clenching his fingers together and spreads them out over his knee. He takes a vicious bite out of his rabbit and chews without tasting the fishiness. 

Keith makes a sound as if he wants to protest, but says nothing, waiting for Shiro to speak. 

“Anyway, you don’t need to hear my sob story,” Shiro says, laughing dismissively. “I just… this is just another example of it. My friends are running around trying to get my memories back and I repay them by running away. And now you’re stuck with me.” 

He sighs and looks down, fiddling with the stick enough that the last dredges of meat fall off the stick and to the ground. Shiro scoops them up and tosses them into the fire. The air smells like smoked salmon. 

_I love you,_ someone once told him, that inky blackness in his memories, and all Shiro can think is that he doesn’t deserve it, that it’s selfish to desire him. That it’s just another thing he takes and takes and takes, without ever being able to repay it—

Keith startles him from his thoughts again, his hands cupping his face. Shiro’s eyes widen at the touch but Keith doesn’t draw away, his fingertips splayed over his jaw, his thumbs in the hollow of his cheeks. 

“Shiro,” Keith says, and nothing else for a long moment, staring into his eyes. 

He studies Keith’s face, eyes flickering, unsure where to look. His eyes stray to a harsh scar on Keith’s cheek and feels a pang in his heart. He looks into his eyes again. 

“Shiro,” Keith says again, quieter this time. His thumbs move, just slightly, touching his cheekbones. 

And Shiro thinks he could get lost forever in Keith’s eyes, that he could spend days, decaphoebs, centuries, just listening to the way Keith says his name. It startles him, just how deeply he wants that.

“I just,” Shiro murmurs, uncertain. “I just… What if I’m not worth any of it?” 

“You are,” Keith answers, without hesitation. “But even if you weren’t, that wouldn’t matter. You matter to so many people, Shiro. People who know you and people who have never met you. You matter.” 

Keith’s fingers clench at his jaw, hooked there. Shiro can’t remember the last time anyone’s touched him like this. 

“Why am I telling you this?” Shiro whispers. 

“It’s okay,” Keith murmurs. “You’re okay.”

And Shiro believes him.

 

-

 

Shiro barely sleeps. He spends the whole night just staring up at the stars, trying to remember. 

He remembers someone screaming his name, remembers reaching out and touching him, not a physical touch, but the meeting of two souls.

He remembers someone learning he was dead and refusing to accept that. Remembers touching his shoulder and thinking it would be the last time they ever saw each other, and being at peace with that

Remembers thinking, _I love you with everything I am._

 

-

 

They douse the fire with water in the morning, pack their things, and head towards the mountain. Keith walks closer to Shiro, he thinks, or perhaps it’s just wishful thinking. They’re silent, for the most part. Mount Inl shadows them. 

The path they follow leads them up the slope, towards a little cave. Outside it rests a large slab of stone, carved with the Indilli language. 

“This is it,” Keith says, with confidence. He turns towards Shiro. 

“I— I haven’t even thanked you for helping me,” Shiro realizes. “Not really.”

“Thank me when it’s over,” Keith says with a smile that almost reaches his eyes. “Come on.” 

Keith leads the way into the cave’s mouth, opening out into a cavern. The cavern reminds Shiro too much of the entrance to the clone facility, where he fought—

Someone. He fought someone there. He should have died there and yet didn’t. Another hole in his memory, it seems. He pokes at it, tries to remember, but the longer he focuses on it, the more it seems to disappear, crumbling away into sand. 

Someone, so desperate to reach him. Someone, willing to die with him. 

“Let’s go,” Keith mutters, grabbing Shiro by the hand and tugging him into the cavern. “The quicker we get this ritual out of the way, the sooner you’ll be back to normal.” 

Shiro says nothing, staring at how tiny Keith’s hand seems wrapped around Shiro’s own. He lets Keith tug him along, mindful not to trip over any outcroppings of rock. The world outside burns blue under the sun, and inside, the milky stone and juts of blue crystal seem to amplify the color. It feels almost like being underwater. 

“It’s beautiful,” Shiro whispers. Keith doesn’t answer, but after a beat, he squeezes Shiro’s hand. 

At the center of the cavern, a pool stretches, still and faintly glowing. It’s deep but clear, and Shiro can see all the way to the floor of the pool. 

Shiro kneels, guided by instinct, and stretches his hand out. He touches the water and it skims over his hand, almost as if it’s alive.

“You need to wade into it,” Keith says from behind him. “You have to get all the way in. Submerge yourself.” 

“Are you sure?” He looks up at Keith. “Can you tell me more without me forgetting?” 

“I’m not sure of everything,” Keith says. “I just know you need to get into the water and then your memories should return.” Keith squeezes his hand and then lets go. “Shiro,” he says, his voice echoing. “Trust me.” 

And Shiro does. He does. He doesn’t know why, but he does. 

“Okay,” Shiro agrees.

He stands and kicks off his boots. It feels too strange to strip down completely, though, and so resigns himself to wet, itchy clothes. It’ll be worth it, if it means that he can remember everything again. He closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. He lets the memories wash over him, those he remembers and those he tries to grab onto. 

So much darkness. All those places someone important should be. 

Shiro wants to remember, so desperately, that it’s a physical ache. 

He opens his eyes and approaches the pool. He dips his foot in, and the water is strangely warm, pleasant, almost like a hot spring. Shiro takes a deep breath and wades in up to his knees before he pauses, turning back towards Keith.

Keith’s at the water’s edge, arms crossed, concern written clear as day across his face. Their eyes meet and Keith looks away, his cheeks flushed. 

Shiro lets himself linger longer, just looking at Keith. Then, he closes his eyes and tips backward, submerging himself into the water, lets it wash over him. The first thing he feels is how not wet the water feels. His clothes stay dry, even as he feels the water rush around him, cocooning him, buoying him. He can’t breathe and he floats through the deep, clear blue. It feels like space. 

He waits and he waits. He waits for the memories to refold around him, to return to him the way they’re supposed to. 

But nothing happens.

Shiro stays under until he can’t hold his breath anymore and then he breeches with a small gasp. He opens his eyes and looks to Keith. 

Keith has one foot in the water, as if he’s only just holding himself back from running to Shiro. His eyes are wide, hopeful, fearful. 

Shiro shakes his head and says, “I’m sorry.” 

He watches Keith wilt. He watches him take a step back out of the water. 

“It didn’t work,” Shiro confirms. 

“Why didn’t it work? It was supposed to work!” Keith shouts, his voice echoing around the cavern. He reels back, as if Shiro’s slapped him. His pant leg’s wet as he stares around the cavern, his eyes bright and shining in the glow of the pool and crystals all around them. “That damn Indilli told us that this would help you—” 

He sucks in a deep breath and whips back around towards Shiro, looking wounded. 

“Don’t worry, Shiro. I’ll figure something out,” he promises, voice hitching. 

He reaches for Shiro and helps him out of the pool. Shiro’s completely dry, but the water splashes up and laps at Keith’s legs, soaking his suit. 

They look at each other. “I promise,” Keith says. “I’ll find a way to help you.” 

“I know,” Shiro says and smiles, wobbly. “We’ll figure something out.” 

Keith smiles back, brittle and quiet, his eyes bright. Shiro’s about to say something more when the quiet of the cavern splinters, a low growl rippling through the air, ricocheting off the crystals. 

And just as quickly, the cavern plunges into darkness, aside from the faint blue glow of the pool. Keith whirls around in front of him, one hand clenching Shiro’s hip, the other unsheathing his knife. It glows to life and grows, a full sword over a dagger. The purple light of the Luxite illuminates Keith’s face, eyes fierce and jaw clenched. Keith stands between Shiro and the crowding darkness. 

“Stay close to me,” Keith tells Shiro. 

From the darkness emerges a creature so large that it fills nearly the entire cavern. It’s as blue as the crystals, reflecting the missing light, its eyes burning as it looks at them. Keith holds his ground. The creature’s three tails flicker and it regards them, eyes flickering with intelligence. It’s almost catlike, large paws padding the ground without a sound. The face is elegant, spread open like a flower blooming, but angular. 

“The Lein’drod,” Keith murmurs, and Shiro’s eyes widen with realization. The source of light, the stealer of his memories. 

Shiro gives a startled shout when, like something springing loose, the Lein’drod launches towards Keith just as Keith hurtles forward, sword flashing as he swings it down in a sharp arc. Despite its size, the Lein’drod moves quickly, crystalline and quicksilver. It darts out of Keith’s range, but Keith stands his ground, refusing to move from between Shiro and the Lein’drod. 

The Lein’drod moves quickly, seems less focused on attacking Keith and more on getting to Shiro. Keith cuts it off at every move, though, and the Lein’drod can’t get close. 

“Hey,” Shiro calls. 

“Stay back,” Keith barks, the air sizzling with each slash of his sword, Keith is burning, a smoldering fire always. “Shiro, get somewhere safe.” 

Shiro shakes his head, even as he stumbles out of the way of the Lein’drod’s path. Keith shouts, slicing through the air to put himself between the Lein’drod and Shiro. With a deep growl, the Lein’drod shifts its attention, focusing entirely on Keith, stymied in its attempts to get to Shiro. 

Shiro lurches forward, shouldering hard into the Lein’drod and knocking it off balance with a sharp yowl. Shiro nearly topples over onto the beast itself, but Keith grabs his hand and pulls him away.

“I said get somewhere safe!” Keith shouts. “You don’t have a weapon.” 

The Lein’drod is back on its feet, growling and lunging towards Shiro. Keith’s quick to pivot, getting between them and raising his sword to meet the Lein’drod’s claws. 

“Shiro!” Keith shouts. “Go!” 

Shiro does go, but not to retreat. He runs into the water and fishes around, yanking up the heaviest stone he can find, balanced in the palm of his Altean hand. He turns and assesses the curves and swipes from the Lein’drod, waits until Keith is out of the way before he sends the stone soaring. It hits the creature square in the jaw, sending it stumbling back.

“Get back,” Shiro calls to Keith, and Keith is quick to obey, retreating to Shiro’s side as Shiro lobs a heavy crystal, dripping water, towards the Lein’drod. 

It’s hardly an epic battle. Shiro can think of so many battles, so many fights, that he’s won and even lost, so many battles in the arena where he needed to be quick-thinking and protective, when he needed to kill in order not to be killed. 

Still, he can’t remember the last time his heart lurched so high into his throat than when Keith takes one misstep and the Lein’drod is on him, swiping claws down hard against his chest. Keith cries out and his suit shreds over his chest. He’s bleeding, hand pressed against the wound as he stumbles back. 

It happens so suddenly. One moment, Keith is in control. The next, he’s collapsing. 

Shiro gives a strangled shout, something more exhale than words, and hurries to Keith’s side. The Lein’drod retreats as Shiro runs to Keith, but it watches Shiro, ready. 

Shiro can’t focus, all attention on Keith as he hurries to him, collecting him in his arms. Keith groans, dazed, and his chest blooms red against the eerie blue of the cavern. 

“Shiro, get out of here,” Keith says and then says nothing else. 

“Don’t,” Shiro says, and doesn’t know what he’s commanding. 

He looks up to watch the Lein’drod as it circles them. With each turn the creature takes, Shiro turns to keep himself a shield between Keith and it, watching with wary eyes. It doesn’t attack, and Shiro wonders what it’s waiting for. 

“I won’t let you hurt him,” Shiro tells it, his arms curled protectively around Keith. 

Shiro watches in a daze as the Lein’drod stops, tails flicking. It seems to glow brighter, all crystal body now. A bright beam of light pulses out of its eyes and zips towards them. Shiro tries to dodge out of the way, eyes clenched shut, but there’s a searing burst of light and then— nothing. 

When he opens his eyes again, the Lein’drod is gone, and Keith’s still in his arms. And then, Keith’s eyes snap open. They burn a bright orange, no iris, no pupil. Shiro feels that cold realization, as Keith swivels his face and looks at him, that it isn’t Keith. But he doesn’t pull away. 

“Let him go,” Shiro tells the creature inside Keith. 

The Lein’drod tilts its head as it regards Shiro, Keith’s eyes glowing that burning, fire gold. “You were to come to the Cavern of the Vrutill. This one was not meant to come.” 

The Lein’drod sounds strange in Keith’s voice, little inflection and no coloring of emotions. Shiro hadn’t realized how bright Keith’s voice could be until it was muted by the Lein’drod.

“I didn’t know,” Shiro says, then insists, “Release him.” 

The Lein’drod shakes its head. “This is the only way to ensure that this child won’t interfere.” 

Desperation claws in Shiro’s throat. He tightens his hold on Keith, on the Lein’drod, unsure what to do. It’s true that the Lein’drod isn’t attacking anymore. Keith’s body is slack in Shiro’s hold. It doesn’t feel like safety, but it feels less like the Lein’drod is about to go for his throat. 

The Lein’drod looks up at him through Keith’s eyes, bright and glowing orange. Its face is slack, lacking any emotion. “No more harm will come to this one,” the Lein’drod says, as if sensing Shiro’s distress, the turmoil of his thoughts. “But the Ritual of the Rah’annurs must be complete. You are my Chosen.” 

“Why?” Shiro asks, desperate. “Why me? He said— he said the light was aimed for him.” 

“Your heart was calling. I heard it from the stars,” the Lein’drod says. “It was always meant to be you to come to the cavern.”

“And do what?” 

“The creatures of the valley come to me for their memories of the Rah’annurs. If it is a true Rah’annurs, then it is granted.” The Lein’drod stares at Shiro, as if he could comprehend the words. “You must be worth receiving them.” 

_I’m not,_ is Shiro’s first thought, but it’s eclipsed by the concern for Keith, overcome by the words the Lein’drod tells him. 

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Shiro cries out, anger mounting once more, his hands firm where he holds Keith. “I don’t— I don’t _know_ what Rah’annurs is. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. What do you want from me?” 

Calm, with Keith’s face smooth as glass, the Lein’drod asks, “What does this child mean to you?” 

“I…” Shiro trails off, helpless. 

“This one travels the universe for you, his Rah’annurs,” the Lein’drod says, its eyes burning as it stares into Shiro— as if down to his very core, to everything he is. “And what of you?”

“Your ritual didn’t work,” Shiro says. “I don’t remember anything.” 

The Lein’drod is so still and so silent, gazing up at Shiro. “Why do you assume your failure?”

Shiro holds its eyes, steady, despite how bright and burning the golden glow is. He wants to look away, his eyes tearing up against the bright light. 

“What is it you want?” the Lein’drod asks. 

_To be worth it all,_ is the first thought that blooms in his mind; he ignores it. 

_To be loved._

“Let him go,” Shiro says, and it sounds like he’s begging now. So be it. 

The Lein’drod studies him, silent and judging. 

“Your Rah’annurs,” it says. “Who is it?”

Before he can think to question it, Shiro tightens his hold on Keith. The Lein’drod doesn’t make a sound, but it seems pleased, a catlike smile curving Keith’s mouth. 

“Yes,” the creature purrs. Then, quietly, “Return to the water.”

Shiro’s hold on Keith’s body doesn’t dare slacken. He stares into the Lein’drod’s eyes. “I’m not leaving him here with you.”

The Lein’drod tilts its head, regarding him. “Very well.”

Quick and catlike, Keith slinks out of Shiro’s arms and approaches the pool. It ripples as Keith stands at its edge, and Shiro’s quick to stand and follow the Lein’drod. 

“Drink,” the Lein’drod tells him, Keith’s hair falling into its eyes. 

Cautious, slowly, Shiro kneels. His hands reach out and pull the water to him. He cups it in his palms. It feels like it’s singing, swirling there in his hands. He tips his head forward and sips, tentative at first, and then a deeper drink. He doesn’t dare close his eyes, doesn’t dare take his eyes off Keith. 

For a moment, he feels nothing but the warmth from the water. 

“Only the worthy find their memories again,” the Lein’drod tells him as Shiro stands, facing it. “Many Chosen have come to me and failed to remember their Rah’annurs. The bond wasn’t strong enough.” 

“I thought you were meant to test me,” Shiro says.

The Lein’drod doesn’t do anything as inelegant as snort, but it looks amused for a moment, something flickering across Keith’s face. It shakes its head. “The children of the valley test themselves enough. You judge yourself enough, child.” 

Shiro shakes his head, lost. “I don’t understand.” 

“What does this child mean to you?” the Lein’drod asks again. 

“I don’t know. I don’t—” Shiro whispers, voice breaking as it echoes through the cavern. He only knows what his body seems to tell him: to keep reaching for him, to not let him go, to not let him out of his sight. 

The Lein’drod smiles, slow and steady, a hint of sadness. “So many Rah’annurs come to me, unwilling to accept their worthiness. You answered the call. You were Chosen.”

The memories lap at the edges of his mind, begging to be remembered. Someone, always there. Someone, leaping off the edge for him. Someone, calling his name. 

Someone, again and again, loving him. Someone, again and again, thinking him worthwhile. 

Someone making him believe it can be true. 

Shiro reaches, wordless, his hands open and uncertain, for Keith’s body as the Lein’drod sways.

“Now choose,” the Lein’drod tells him, smiling gentler now. “Let yourself be illuminated.” 

Shiro watches as Keith’s eyes fall shut and he goes deathly still. Shiro’s stepping forward instantly, fearing the worst, his heart still in his chest. His hands touch Keith and pull him in. Shiro falls to his knees, guiding Keith down so he doesn’t hit the floor, hand cradling his head, the other curled around him protectively. 

“Please,” Shiro whispers, ducking his face towards Keith. 

He doesn’t know why he’s begging so deeply for someone he doesn’t know, but hears the twang in his heart that means _it’s true._. His mind is still incomplete, but he accepts what his body seems to know. 

“Please,” he says again, “stay with me.” 

He doesn’t know if he can be worthy of it. But he wants to be. He wants to be the kind of man that person saw, the voice from the dark in his memories. He wants to be someone who runs up to meet him, too. 

And like a drop in a still pool, ripples race through his mind. He knows from experience that trying to grab onto it will mean it disappears and so, instead, Shiro lets it pour over him, soaks into it. 

“Please,” he whispers, pressing his forehead to the top of Keith’s head, nose in his hair. It feels like home. He wants to chase that feeling but resists, his arm tightening around Keith’s still body. “Don’t leave me. Let me be worthy of you.”

 _Keith._

It brightens through him, one crisp chime of a deep bell. It hits him all at once, a sweep of memories once locked away:

A boy at the back of the class group, invited to try the simulator, his car driving off down the street, holding the door to juvey open and leading him outside—

Charging off a cliff, Keith’s disbelieving laughter in his ear as he clings to him, as he shows him how to get that proper lift—

The day of the launch, nudging his shoulder, Keith smiling up at him and promising, _I’ll be here when you get back—_

Waking up in a shack with Keith hovering over him—

A million memories, hugging him close, watching him fight in his Trials, dressing his wounds, saving him from an alien creature, _Stop talking like that,_ and _As many times as it takes—_

The blast of heat as his arm transforms, the slice of burning skin over his cheek, _I love you—_

Waking up and thinking, _I love you, too—_

Landing on a new planet and watching the way the sun hits Keith’s hair, thinking, _I love him._ Thinking, _I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to tell him—_

Thinking, _I’ll never be worth—_

The bright light bearing down on Keith, the instinctual need to reach out and shove him aside, letting the blast hit him instead, Keith’s shouting in his ear as he loses all consciousness—

Waking up to Keith’s face, hair in his face, eyes frantic, his desperate relief—

Waking up to Keith’s face and not knowing who he is—

Waking up to Keith’s face—

Waking up to Keith’s face—

Again and again, never remembering him—

It’s rapid-fire, slamming into him all at once. By the end of it, Shiro feels winded, hunched into himself. 

It isn’t right that Keith in his memories should be a streak of darkness. If Shiro is nothing but a night sky, then Keith is not just the stars and the moon, he is everything. Every pinpoint of light in his memories points to Keith. His light. He’d chase him forever, waiting to be illuminated. 

He has no time to marvel at the return of his memories. But he’s glowing, he realizes— a bright red-orange that pierces through the blue of the cavern. His breathing goes ragged. He’s so cold, wet with Keith’s blood and running on adrenaline. 

The light keeps growing. He’s burning up. He’s a little sun, a swinging lantern. Shiro thinks of the Indilli on the street, all those different colored feathers, and those couples who glowed. Like this, illuminated. 

Something cold courses through Shiro’s veins, despite the heat of the light from his chest. He trembles, holding Keith close. He didn’t realize how cold he’s been until now.

“Keith,” he whispers. He can’t remember the last time he said his name aloud, and hears it singing in his ears. “ _Keith._ ” 

He tightens his hold on Keith and watches mesmerized, when light bursts out of the claw marks on Keith’s chest, the skin knitting itself back together. The bleeding stops. The Lein’drod promised him no harm. 

“Keith?” Shiro whispers and Keith’s eyes snap open and he looks up at him, shock clear on his face. There must be something in the way Shiro says his name, something Keith can recognize. 

“Shiro?” he murmurs back, looking at him. 

Keith’s hand lifts and touches his cheek and Shiro leans into it without hesitation, his smile wobbly.

“You remember me,” Keith says and Shiro nods. Keith hiccups a small, shaky laugh and surges up, wrapping his arms tight around Shiro and hugging him. He presses his face to his shoulder and whispers, “ _Shiro._ ” 

He feels it, how tightly Keith clings to him— all those days, worrying, all those days where Shiro couldn’t know who he was. All those days fearing that Shiro would never return to him again, a greatest fear realized. 

Shiro clings to him, hugging him back so tight. The urge to apologize is there, but he knows Keith will reject it. He focuses, instead, on holding Keith to him, their bodies flush. 

Shiro’s glowing, deep orange radiating out of him, almost like he’s his own sun, his own lantern. The second Keith touches him, he starts to glow, too. A binary star, orbiting around Shiro. 

Light.

So much light. 

They draw back enough to look at each other. Keith’s eyes are wide, his cheeks glowing red against the orange, his body as bright as a supernova. 

“I—” Keith whispers, but can’t manage any more before he’s bursting into tears. 

One moment, he is still, and the next, his expression splinters apart. It’s a silent cry, spilling over his cheeks. He doesn’t cry out. He doesn’t sob. But the tears well up in his eyes and then overflow. Shiro’s own eyes swim. 

“I didn’t—” Keith whispers again. 

Keith tries to hide it, ducking his head, but Shiro’s already reaching for him, cupping his face, leaning in. He brushes his thumbs over his cheeks once, and then he leans into him. 

When he kisses Keith, it tastes like the way fire feels. Keith gasps against his open mouth. Shiro’s burning, breaking apart. His hands press up and hold Keith close, supporting him as he swallows the softest sound Keith makes. 

Kissing Keith, Shiro thinks he understands what the Indilli failed to define, what the Rah’annurs means— flame, that fire, that soul that consumes him. That which everything else unravels from. His soul finding Keith’s, pursuing Keith’s. The echo that curls back into him. 

Shiro can’t think he’s worth it, and yet. He wants to be. 

He’s made his choice. 

“Keith,” he whispers. His lips ghosts against Keith’s, a soft press of his mouth. 

Keith breaks the kiss with a little sound, something that’s almost a sob. Shiro leans into him, doesn’t move his hands from his face. 

“Keith,” he whispers.

“Again,” Keith says, eyes wide. “My name.” 

So Shiro says his name again and again, to make up for all the times he didn’t. He punctuates each one with a kiss and doesn’t stop until he feels the slightest curve of Keith’s smile. It’s tentative, but there.

Keith fists his hands in his shirt and tugs him down, kissing him with all the fierceness and fire Shiro’s always known he possesses. He slants his mouth to his, swallows the sound of Shiro’s hitching breath. He pulls him close, never lets go. If the sound of Shiro’s name on Keith’s tongue is a prayer, then this is worship. 

“Shiro,” Keith whispers.

They draw back to look at each other again, breathless. They’re still burning all the colors of fire. Shiro’s still emanating light from the inside out, a lighthouse in the darkest storm, Keith absorbing it and reflecting it back to him. 

“Any clue why we’re glowing?” Keith asks, frowning. 

Shiro thinks of the Indilli he saw on the street, glowing the closer they came to one another. He smiles. Helpless, he tips forward and presses his forehead to Keith’s. 

“Keith,” Shiro whispers. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of saying it. “You found me.” 

“We’re—” 

“Rah’annurs,” Shiro agrees. 

Soulmates. Shiro almost laughs at the thought of it, looking into the familiar purple of Keith’s eyes, soft and glowing between them, as bright as a golden sun. Keith’s eyes fill with tears and Shiro remembers, again, a memory of Keith through the door, the surety of a mistake. And if Shiro’s eyes turn misty, too, it’s easy enough to blame the ferocity of the light around them.

Keith tilts and presses his mouth to Shiro’s, kissing him again and again. He shares his breath. He holds him close. 

“Keith,” Shiro whispers and waits for Keith’s eyes to open— that bright, beautiful, indefinable color against the glow of their bodies. “You are everything.” 

Keith’s smile spreads across his face, nearly blinding, and tears spill down his cheeks. Shiro wipes them away with his thumbs and leans down to kiss him again, their glow flooding the entire cavern with light.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject) (including the [LLF Comment Builder](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/commentbuilder)), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates responses, including:
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